All Ending Are Also Beginnings
by The Cold Crawley
Summary: After Mary's suggestion in 3x01, she and Matthew call off the wedding and Matthew is leaving Downton. "Deep down, she knows she'll cling to the memory of him until she dies and when they cut open her heart, they'll find a dance, a kiss or two and a solider who fights for himself more than his allies." But an emotional end may soon become a new beginning for the couple, AU for 3x01


**A/N**:

Hello dear reader!

So yesterday I was re-watching 3x01 and that moment Mary suggested to Matthew that they call the wedding off, really got me thinking. So here it is, lovely reader! The Branson's didn't get the money, thus were never sent over and Tom never gave Matthew the 'stop messing around with this ship!' speech. In simpler terms, the wedding has been called off. Angst warning! If I continue this (provided there is interest) then I PROMISE it will end happily! Now enough from me, read away and enjoy! And please bare in mind, I wrote this very late at night and it's barley been edited, I apologize for any mishaps.

**Disclaimer**:

I don't own Downton, if I did then I would have made sure the show's baby-baring stomachs looked a lot more realistic in showing the final stages of pregnancy

She kisses his cheek and he smiles at her, they felt it wasn't any use. In the end, all that matters to their kind of people is money, and as he is selfish with his, she can't marry him. Dark clouds pool together overhead, rain beginning to drip from their black clumps as she watches her family smile and shake hands with him, or hug him as her father had done. Matthew had always been his honorary son and Mary knew by now how foolish it was to try and regain the position, when she never had it in the first place. He reaches her mother and takes in her disappointed smile with a slight shrug of his shoulders, as if to say, 'what can I do?'. Mary wants to slap him and cradle him, she's never felt so torn before. He knows what he can do and he refuses for his own selfish reasons, he'd rather she and her family drown in debt to save himself. As she looks back on it now, she wonders if he'll ever forget her. Deep down, she knows she'll cling to the memory of him until she dies and when they cut open her heart, they'll find a dance, a kiss or two and a solider who fights for himself more than his allies. This thought almost brings tears to her eyes so she has to look away, fixing her eyes on their bench and trying not to let the tears escape her eyes. The door closes and she sees herself clearly reflected in the car. She looks composed and serene, she doesn't recognize herself.

* * *

Her chocolate pools find his and they capture each other for a moment, a single moment before the car begins to move away and he knows he won't be back for a long time. It will be years before the thought enters his mind, and by that stage he will have tried to move on, a new woman, a new city and a new fortune, but she remains behind and in a way, she holds him back. She's a weight tied to his heart, pulling constantly and every time he sees chocolate hair among a crowd,or notices that ice pale skin that he never got to kiss, he thinks of her and the pain she has caused him. He knows her pain is greater, but he can't help her without hating himself and he knows he would condemn them both to a life of misery with money constantly compelling the splitting crack in their marriage. He couldn't do that to her, he loves her too much to make her face that hatred every day without it eating her up. Because as much as he wishes it was, life isn't a fairy tale. At least not their lives, his life. Miracles are acts of God, not plot devices for a happily ever after, and love creates problems that can't be solved with a kiss. They try to drill this into their minds as the car winds away from the large mansion they loved, feelings of bittersweet sadness wash into the water and over her skin while she bathes and thinks of him, and he inhales the toxicity of heart brake and loss over and over again inside his tiny carriage.

They will learn that time and distance are good medicine.

They learn it's too late for them, no matter where they were headed.

And they learn that this truth is okay,

Because every story has it's ending, this is theirs.

It has to be, doesn't it?


End file.
